Writing is something that I have struggled with my entire life. As one of the lucky kids that had most subjects in school come pretty naturally, I found myself consistently frustrated with the writing process. Creative writing was my favorite type of writing – coming up with made-up stories excited my fantasy-reading younger mind – however this form of writing was less common than I would like and much to my frustration, I learned from various teachers throughout the years that compelling writing takes planning and thought. Starting in elementary school and into middle school and chasing me throughout high school, I was convinced that good writing has to be planned out and I can’t just write down every passing thought in the scattered chaotic fashion they enter my mind. Now this is fine and good for making grades, especially because as a future scientist, I convinced myself that it was just English classes that I needed these skills for – what am I going to use this for in my real job? Trick question: I now blog about science for part of my job! Then the unthinkable happened: I went to college for ecology and evolution and professional writing chased me into my science classes. Professional scientists taught me that we need to document the science that we conduct so that other scientists can replicate our tests and confirm or refute our hypotheses. YIKES. Begrudgingly I recalled all of the English classes I’d taken, and I relearned the art of telling a story, only this time through a scientific lens: where does this work come from, what were my results, and finally the most important part of any paper – why do my results matter? I’ve spent two weeks ruminating on how to write about my time offshore on S/V Kismet and the adventure that is offshore sailing. And it feels like I’m writing about myself, so suddenly it’s like I’m tongue-tied at a job interview for a position that I desperately want: how do I describe the sky of endless stars? The feeling of sailing away from shore and slowly watching everything you know about normal life fading away leaving you on a small floating object that is subject to the whims of the sea? I’m not sure, but it is the middle of the story I started telling when I arrived in Florida, and it was a lot easier and a lot less scary than prepping for your first hurricane (or tropical storm) onboard a sailboat, so I guess we can start with leaving land behind. Offshore views were pretty tight Offshore sailing is the coolest. I’m just going to start there. It’s like remote camping on the ocean – you have everything you need on the boat, and you are entirely reliant on your skills and planning to get you through the time you’ve allotted for it. Sailing off from Stuart, FL after waiting a day for the seas to calm after the passing of Tropical Storm Isaias was remarkably smooth. We hauled the anchor like any other day and made our way out into the Atlantic, chasing the storm north on our way to Charleston, SC. Now driving from Stuart to Charleston, Google Maps estimates that it is approximately 7.5 hours. We managed to make the passage more directly (see image) in a mere 51 hours straight! So cool right? Sailboats are remarkably slow, but how many people can say that between Stuart and Charleston they saw two endangered adult leatherback sea turtles??? NOT THAT MANY (that is of course, unless you get really really lucky and happen to stop off at a Florida beach during sea turtle nesting season). The approximate path of S/V Kismet from Stuart, FL to Charleston, SC (via Google Maps) So for those that haven’t had the privilege of sailing offshore, or who like one of my coworkers think it sounds like an absolute nightmare, I’m more than happy to run you through the good, the bad, and the questionable about this wonderful and slightly bizarre experience. There are a few main differences between sailing nearshore and sailing offshore (for our trip). The first big difference between sailing nearshore and offshore is that you don’t stop at night. This difference is readily apparent when you split up watches. The watches matter at night the most because one person got to sleep on deck while the other person was at the helm making sure that we were both on course and not on course to collide with other boats (but we’ll address that later). Aside from feeling very piratey while taking watch, the job is supremely important because if we steered too much off course during someone’s watch we were tacking on additional hours of sleep-deprived sailing. The compass and I were bffs on my night watches Now the last time I sailed offshore, we had this nifty piece of technology called an autopilot that made staying on course for long straight lines really easy. Autopilots on sailboats are akin to the cruise control function in a car, only instead of keeping your speed constant, the autopilot helps you keep the same compass heading. Without an autopilot this trip, we were tasked with having someone holding the steering wheel of the boat for the entire 51-hour duration of our trip, which is A LOT of standing and a whole heck of a lot of passing the time spent scanning the horizon and checking the compass against the chart (nautical map!!!). The second big difference between nearshore and offshore sailing is, intuitively, you are far away from land – and as such need to be a little extra aware of the boats near you. Sailboats move really slowly. We averaged about 7 knots (knots are nautical miles per hour, or 1.15 miles per hour), which feels pretty quick when you’re under sail, but when you compare that to the speed of shipping vessels that are cruising around 20 knots, it allows REALLY BIG BOATS to creep up on you REALLY quick. We weren’t really traveling in a well-trafficked area so we didn’t see that many large ships on the horizon, and for my watches the first night, I didn’t see any other boats. The second night I definitely had some large ships that were moving but none got near us, which was a big relief. So what’s so cool about sailing offshore? For one, you’re out in an ecosystem that we don’t get to access all the time, and as such get to see cool marine life that’s a little different than the life we see normally. As I alluded to earlier, this trip I was lucky enough to see not one, but TWO adult leatherbacks! These sea turtles are ocean wanderers and are not frequently seen. In addition to being rarely sighted, they happen to be my favorite species of sea turtle and I had only seen their hatchlings in the past, so getting to see adults made my entire week. We had a few different pods of dolphins that followed us, which always leaves me feeling like an excited and over-enthusiastic little kid again. This trip we also had dozens if not over a hundred dragonflies surrounding the boat for probably 15 minutes. Since returning to wifi we learned that there are dragonflies that migrate across oceans. No I didn't get a picture fo the Leatherback...but this is me right after I saw it! Another part of offshore sailing that always sticks with me long after I’ve left the ship is the raw power of nature while out there. Weather is incredible. It’s remarkable how quickly the sky can go from crystal clear to an imposing wall of gray clouds that represents a squall. Lightning takes on scary significance when your 50 foot mast is the tallest thing in the water and you are at least 10 hours of motoring from shore. Additionally, sailing offshore fosters an incredible respect for the wind, especially when it’s blowing in your favor. In my daily life, I’m not usually very concerned about what direction the wind is blowing from, but when the wind is aiding you in returning to shore hours sooner (and potentially hours sooner to sleeping all the way through the night), it is devastating when the wind drops or shifts on you. I think that for me the coolest part of offshore sailing is the reconnection to nature I feel. Unplugging from the world and taking a deep breath while watching the sunset or a moonrise is infrequent in my suburban, post-Covid life, and in the absurdly light-polluted and fog-covered community I call home it’s remarkably difficult to see the stars at night. And while camping has been the closest I’ve found to the same peacefulness I find while out on the water, there’s nothing quite like taking a deep breath with the knowledge that you are one of the only 2 people for dozens of miles in any direction surrounded by the world’s ocean. Nothing beats a sunset offshore.
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AuthorBree Gibbs, here. I'm a recent Master's Grad just trying to share what it's like to be a trash scientist (for those who aren't in the know, I'm a marine biologist). Categories
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March 2021
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